Desert

[Walt Whitman]

Source: from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (chapter 7)

Context: Heathcliff thinks that his beloved Catherine has fallen in love with Edgar Linton. He is convinced that Edgar is much more handsome than he. He has blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin. Moreover, he’s going to be rich one day. Heathcliff is a dark-skinned boy who looks like a gypsy, and a farm hand with no prospect of being rich. Nelly, the housekeeper, thinks that Heathcliff is even more handsome than Edgar, and tries to encourage him to have more confidence in himself. She leads him to a mirror and says,

Don’t get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet, hates all the world as well as the kicker for what it suffers.

I have to confess that I find this passage really difficult, above all the word “desert”. Could you please help me paraphrase it?

Thank you
WW

 

[Rover_KE]

are its desert = are what it deserves

 

[emsr2d2]

A common phrase (in BrE at least) is "to get one's just deserts".

 

[Walt Whitman]

Actually, I have problems with the whole passage.

 

[emsr2d2]

Actually, I have problems with the whole passage.

The whole passage? Really? Are you sure you don't mean just the piece starting at "Don't get the expression ..."? I think your English is good enough to make sense of the rest.